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Effect and Cause
Production Details Kate Collins: Susan Strasberg David: Ben Marley Janet: Judith-Marie Bergman Jeff: Gary Hershberger Paramedic # 1: Jay Scorpio Paramedic # 2: Chip Heller Synopsis An artist learns that she has the power to affect reality after she paints over her canvases. Plot Act I Free spirited artist Kate receives a batch of macabre paintings from her friend David, who recently confiscated them from another artist who was evicted from her apartment. Kate looks over them - one in particular is a screaming demon-like being. She‘d rather not paint over them though, claiming that each finished painting has a positive energy that lives on forever. As Kate goes upstairs, David attempts to make tea in the kitchen but has to light the stove with a match. He wonders how she can live in a house that’s falling apart. An ambulance pulls up and knocks on the door — the paramedics are looking for a woman who fell down the stairs. David asks if they have the right address. Kate suddenly falls down the stairs — breaking her leg in the process — and the paramedics rush to help. While David believes the broken house is at fault, Kate claims it to be “bad karma”. Act II Kate is helped home by David and her workaholic sister Janet, who wastes no time blaming the rickety house for the injury. Janet wants Kate to get out of the art industry and volunteers to help her get a normal job, but Kate declines. Instead, she ponders on the oddity of the paramedics coming before she fell. She considers the possibility she may have broken her leg earlier in another timeline. Later on, Kate decides to start whitewashing the paitings. The doorbell rings and almost short circuits due to old age. A delivery boy named Jeff is there to deliver groceries; Kate finds it odd because she didn’t order groceries, but lets him in anyway believing her sister had placed the order. As Jeff lists off each item, the same item in the house disappears. Kate, left confused and intrigued, relays this bizarre incident to Janet later on. Janet reminds Kate of her hippie days and the large amounts of LSD she did years ago. Kate’s assertion of what she saw annoys Janet, who argues “you’re never gonna see any other reality except your own” before leaving. Act III Kate and David are hanging out another day when she asks him to “omit the ‘shoulds’ and ‘ought tos’ and to let things take shape”. David has no idea what Kate‘s talking about, so she shows him: she lays out a deck of cards And asks him to pick a card he’s never seen before. He draws a 7 of clocks and a King of Frogs, but he just thinks she’s learned a card trick. David‘s car keys suddenly disappear. Kate believes she can change reality and that she lives in a universe without cause. The lamp turns on by itself; Kate claims this happened because she thought it was getting dark. She theorizes that the universe is more random and that they’re constantly forcing order into reality. David‘s keys reappear in a different place than before. Act IV Later that night, Kate‘s making a sandwich when suddenly the butter knife turns into a spoon. Frustrated, she tells herself “no freelancing”. She then tries to make tea but inexplicably the sink blows fire and the stove sprays water. Panicked, she takes a call from Janet and tells her the house is “zapping out”. As Janet berates her for wasting her time, items all around the house take on different forms. The phone disappears, then reappears later in the fridge. She tries to leave the house, but the doorknob takes on a spaghetti-like form. The demon painting is seen hanging on the front door. Kate loses her mind and falls back, dunking her head into some white paint. As a police siren is heard outside, the gas stove turns on by itself and the doorbell goes haywire. A panicked Kate can only watch as these crazy mishaps begin to trigger an explosion.Category:1985 Category:Season 2 Category:Written by Michael Kube-McDowell Category:Episodes